On Biffra's Cherry-Picking.

I seem to keep coming back to climate studies, why?

They are second to none right now in the misuse of science and agenda driven “science meant to be used to change our lifestyles in way most still can’t comprehend.  And in spite of the growing evidence contradicting  the  climate change “science”  scientific, media and political forces are still acting like there’s nothing to see here and that critics are off their gourd.   Since this involves what is supposed to be a “hard” science instead of my usually field, the “social” sciences   it make it especially egregious when this sort of thing goes on.

Today Anthony Watts  has  an interesting analysis of the issues involving tree-ring studies in general, and the studies if Keith Biffra,  which get cited over and over again as authoritative, in particular.  I’ll link it at the end of this post.

Here is the problem.   Conservationism has been taken over by folks who want to use conservation as a means to concentrate the population in urban centers that they may be more easily controlled by a powerful government.  Some of these folks actually believe we are a cancer on the earth.  In the warming of the eighties they saw a possible way to achieve their agenda, the globe warmed up a little.  So, the plan was advanced to convince people that we are the cause of the warming and that it is unprecedented in history.  Then people would be inclined to give up technology freedoms and rights in the name of restoring the climate before disaster strikes.

Unfortunately the historical record doesn’t cooperate with the thesis they were advancing.  We know from records kept world-wide in certain civilizations that there have been warm periods and cold periods throughout human history.  We even have names for them such as the Medieval Warming Period (MWP ) and the Maunder Minimum (MM).  But global warming theory doesn’t allow for that.

So they started looking at so called proxies, natural evidence which could possibly be used to infer temperatures such as sediment cores, etc.    But those didn’t cooperate very well either, until two men enter the arena Dr. Michael Mann and Keith Biffra.   Both men purported to use tree-ring ring dendrology to measure earth’s past temperatures.  Dr. Mann came first and produced the sensational “hockey-stick” graph which purportedly proved that temperature was stable through the millennia until modern man started spewing carbon dioxide gas into the atmosphere.   Biffra next appeared to duplicate Mann’s result using  trees from another area of the earth.  Mr. Watts gives an excellent summary on the problem with tree-ring dendrology for measuring temperatures:

For many years, scientists have used tree-ring data to try to measure temperatures from the distant past, but the idea is problematic in and of itself. Why? Because tree-ring data reflect many variables besides temperature. Russian tree growth, like that of trees around the world, also reflects changes in humidity, precipitation, soil nutrients, competition for resources from other trees and plants, animal behavior, erosion, cloudiness, and on and on.

Watts is examining Biffra’s study in his article which is why he   mentions Russia in particular.  Mann ‘s study was debunked pretty quickly after he published it.  First he used a species of tree which is notorious for its unreliability for documenting seasonal variations because of its growth range among other reasons.  There were other problems with his methodologies and Mann wasn’t forthcoming in reporting all the statistical tests used or           sharing his data.  And one could go on. 

Biffra, on the other hand, used trees in the Yamal region of Russia for his study, a seemingly more stable choice with a better chance of yielding reliable results.   So his study was hailed for “confirming” Mann’s and is cited to this day as authoritative proof that the historical record is wrong and that we are driving our planet over the edge.

What Watts then concentrates on is the sampling of the trees, that is how many trees are included and why.  That is the point of his article.  The general rule in statistics is the larger and inclusive the sampling, the better the picture and the more accurate with reality.   Now it’s impossible to sample and analyze the rings of every tree of the species chosen in the Yamal region for a study.  But that’s alright as every statistician knows.   Methodologies have been developed and the appropriate statistical analysis developed over the years which yield amazingly accurate results.  That was why Ford could crash just a few Pintos and predict almost to the person how many would die in rear-ending crashes of that defective car.   Biffra claims to have done that.

What Watts explains is that, no, he didn’t.  At least not in the case of the trees used in the study he released.  Oh, Biffra did sample many more trees, but the results weren’t acceptable to him, so he cherry-picked the trees he finally used for his final product to inflate the temperature record in favor of the climate science party line.  That is one very big scientific no-no!   And Watts goes on to lay the case out quite convincingly along with some of the other known misleading steps Biffra worked into the final product.

So we get a rather sordid picture of just how far true-believers in   catastrophic global warming are willing to go to achieve their ends.

My dear friends and readers, these sorts of tactics aren’t limited to the climate science community. They are far more widespread than most people realize.  Dishonesty is now endemic in academia.  Science is being turned into a political tool right before our eyes to advance agendas and smear those who aren’t onboard.   Outside science academia is being harnessed to re-write history in a way which   conforms to a certain worldview, a dangerous one.  That is the point of this blog, to highlight what is going on and warn those who come across it to the dangers posed for us.   

Question, always question what is presented to you as “truth.”   Check the facts before deciding what you do.  But most of all do your own research and be informed.   

The Sum of Yamal Is Greater than Its Parts.                                                            

Flat Ocean Tmeperatures For 55 Years!

Here’s an interesting piece of new out of Anthony Watt’s site:

Trenberth's Missing Heat Still missing.

It seems the ocean temperatures aren’t rising as expected, or even touted, just a mere 0.09C rise in the last 55 years!  And this isn’t denier whooie, its authoritative research published in Geophysical Research Letters!  Now that is interesting!

If You Don't Believe In Climate Change You Must Be Sick

Here we go:

If you Don't Believe In Climate Change You Must Be Sick.

This is what happens when the facts aren't really on the environmentalists’ side.  Attack the messengers.  Skeptics MUST be mentally diseased and need treatment.  Sorry Ms Norgaard, your PhD is wasted.  Skepticism isn't a disease, it is founded in fact.

For many years the premise that it is solely man’s contribution to the CO2 in the atmosphere was up for question on several points.  It is now demonstrated scientifically that man’s contribution is so minimal it might as well be considered miniscule.  Although man does contribute to the rise, it’s mainly on natural sources, including massive amounts of CO2 released as the earth warms from sources locked up in the tundra.

The feedback loops assumed to increase warming exponentially as more CO2 enters the atmosphere are now shown by satellite observation not to be in play.  The current “rising” of the seas is now known to be from sinking land masses not melting ice which is strangely enough binding up more water again.

The current slight dip in global temperatures experienced during the last decade wasn’t predicted by the global warming models and defies the theory as to what should be happening.  We’ve seen major rivers freeze over which haven’t in decades, watched massive casualties from cold winters like we used to have and many other anecdotal things which defy global warming theory.

Yet WE are the ones who are crazy?

With things not going your way and scandal on every side in the Global warming community all you are left with is good old attack the messenger arguments.  Don’t look too close at the evidence, we’re the experts and you can trust us.  They are mentally defective and need to be treated for not believing us.  Those are the tactics of people who’ve lost the debate because the evidence just doesn’t fit and have no recourse left but to ridicule those who do have the facts behind them.  And the really sad part of all this is that WE are paying your salary and for whatever bogus studies you and your colleagues may dream up to “prove” your point.  How despicable!

Look, the earth has been warming since the late nineteenth century.  Before that there was a little ice age Dr. Mann and his cronies tried to rewrite out of existence.  The earth warms and cools.  It is an irregular cycle which is not well understood by scientists, though my money is on the folks who say solar activity is the main driver.  I don’t think the warm has completely stopped and we are headed into another ice age of some sort as some do.  My worldview calls for some more warming before all is said and done.

However, warming on a global scale isn’t in our hands.  We aren’t the driver and the extreme proposals for dealing with it won’t change a thing.  All they’ll do is divert resources from what we should be doing, finding ways to adapt to it.  As you divert us from that important task and if you succeed in your agenda it won’t be us skeptics who’ll be despised throughout history.  It’ll be you.

So stop attacking us and look for real solutions to real problems while you still can.

Note:

This essay was accidentally posted in the wrong blog last month.  So I've moved it  here where it belongs even though it's a little out of date.  Enjoy! 

Cracking Down.

Today I saw this in the News:

Police Raid Climate Blogger's Hone. 

Now the raid itself isn't exactly news to me since I did see an earlier report simply reporting the fact.  But the analysis  by Mr. Birdnow did get my attention.  Why start going after skeptic bloggers over this?  Why now?

Mr Birdnow Quotes Ron De Haan on that:

This time the e-mails contain the names of political leaders, government departments, institutions and... a potentially explosive content.

Yes, I would say that is plenty of reason to care now.  It was never about science on any level, it was about politics.  Now  that folks with some real power are threatened, it's time to reach out and do something.  It's a story as old as time.  Go read the blog I linked, there is something in there which shoul.d scare everybody in the form of an e-mail sent to various Climate skeptic blogger by the DOJ.

More on Muller

I blogged earlier about the Berkley study which was hyped as the final refutation of Global Warming skepticism.  Well, Anthony Watts, who has had access to the study for some time now has blogged on the much hyped paper:

Berkley Surface Temperature Project Puts PR Before Peer Review.


I am gratified to see Watts express early on some of the same concerns I had with the paper.  Watts tells the story behind the scenes so to speak about how this whole thing was turned into a planned major media event where they forged ahead in spite of warnings about the quality of the data.  Just as I thought, the data used was seriously flawed, though not in the way I thought it might be.  In this case the uncertainty of the data is so high, 70% of the stations with an uncertainty of almost five degrees, that it is useless for reaching the conclusions arrived at.

There is another article, a polemic, which puts the paper in terms easily understood by the layman.  It also addresses the straw-man argument which was advanced by the media.  Watt's touched on that.

The Death of Global Warming Skeptics, Or The Birth of Straw Men?

Carbon Dioxide and Global Warming.

I just finished listening for about and hour to a fascinating discourse given by Professor Murry Salby given in Australia:

Global Carbon Dioxide Emmisions: The Contribution Of Natural Sources.

I sat there wishing I had access to the graphs and charts he kept referring to.  This was basically the same presentation of a paper he gave at an international climate conference which apparently has caused some stir which hasn't been well reported on.  What happens is Prof. Salby breaks down the constituent compositions of Carbon dioxide world wide, including two of its isotopes and arrives at Mankind's contribution to the assumed problem.  Salby estimates that contribution at approximately 5 out of about 160 gigatons of CO2 emissions world wide annually.

See where this is heading?  As if this weren't enough he further mentions that the chief global areas of CO2 emissions are undeveloped areas, including...drum roll...Africa, as I mentioned in another post.  So mankind contributes very little of the emissions and net increase of CO2 in the atmosphere world wide, but it doesn't stop there.  The professor further tells us that his analysis shows that the relationship of atmosphere in the atmosphere to temperature is the opposite of what the "settled science" alleges.  Atmospheric concentrations of CO2 are driven by temperature, not the other way around.

This presentation is worth the effort to listen to it.

Berkley Study

Today an announcement was made of a new study from Berkley:

Global Warming Confirmed By Independent Study.

Before going on to the study itself I have an issue with the BBC's header.  One of the myths promoted by Global Warming activists is that skeptics are global warming deniers that we deny any warming has occurred.  That is patently untrue on its face.  Oh, I don't doubt there are a few folks who do, but most of us in the "denier" community accept that there has been warming over the long term.   Where we beg to differ is as to the extent and cause.  Those two issues go to the heart of the matter and are why a number of prominent scientists are jumping ship.  We contend that the research is sloppily or even fraudulently done and does not form a reliable foundation upon which to base policy.

First, let me point out that the study is being prematurely reported on since it hasn't been peer-reviewed and published yet, the claimed gold standard for acceptance by the establishment.  The it is being so widely trumpeted tells me that the fix is in on that score and they just can't wait to publicize what they think will be a refutation of us skeptics.  That the ending of the articles calls for an "apology" on our part to Dr. Jones and his climate change colleagues is telling as to the whole purpose of the exercise in the first place, all denials on that score not withstanding.

Since it's not been published up to this point all we really have to go on are the purported conclusions of the study, that we skeptics are now rebutted.  there is nothing on the exact methodology used to gather data and arrive at their conclusions.  Where did they get their data?  Was it Hadley CRU's data?  Did they go out and collect the raw data from the stations themselves?  We are not told in the article how the data was collected.  Since the Hadley CRU has admitted the raw data has been destroyed and only their "adjusted" data is available, use of that data on the part of the Berkley team would indicate a lack of seriousness in addressing the issue since they would only replicate CRU's conclusions by default.. Unfortunately we have to wait for the publication of the research to get our answer to that question.

CRU Data Loss Not An Accident.

For those who are new to the study of global warming CRU and NASA collect temperature data from thousands of weather stations around the world.  In theory they take that data and compute a global mean or average temperature for days, months and the year.  But that is not what happens in practice.  Instead the data is changed, or "adjusted" to conform to what the scientists think it should be.  Various justifications are used for the "adjustments," change in weather station locations, recalibration of equipment and installation of new equipment. This is done in the name of consistency of data.  Steve McIntyre has noted that more often than not the raw temperature data is revised upwards in the case of recent data.he has also noted a history of multiple revisions of temperatures before 1960 downwards.

The effect of such revision of the raw data can be noted by looking at the graph given as evidence in the BBC article.  for sake of reference an anomalous cold year in the late nineteenth century, 1880, is set as the standard for a "normal" global temperature.  That year's average is the standard against which warming and the rate of warming are judged.  When we look at the graph what sticks out is that the year 1960 appears to be the "normal" since it is the only one which firmly sits on the zero temperature deviation line.  1880 is about .3 of one degree below normal.  With 1880 being the definition of a "normal" global average temperature it should be on the zero line.  That would give us a very different picture than what global warming advocates want us to have as to the global temperatures and rate of increase.  I won't state the obvious here.

we are also informed that the new study refutes the contention of skeptics that the urban heat island effect is a significant factor in the apparent rise of temperatures in the data.  For those new to this the heat island effect is the contention on the part of those who question the data that the change in urban environments and building materials through the years has skewed the actual temperatures upwards over time.  Materials, such as asphalt absorb heat and then radiate it into the surrounding local atmosphere.  Anyone who's ever been in the middle of an asphalt parking lot on a hot day can testify anecdotally to the truth of that effect.  Global Warming activists have contended for years that such a phenomenon is minimal and irrelevant.  We'll have to wait until formal publication to see how they arrive at that conclusion in this study.  I do find it ironic, however, that the BBC places a picture in the story which proves one of us skeptics' contentions, that weather stations are often now placed in environments which artificially drive up the temperature readings.  There is no way that temperature station sitting right in an airport and within proximity of jet exhaust is recording anything other than temperatures skewed upwards.  Sadly, that weather station isn't unusual; it is far more common than it should be.

So in conclusion, what we have here is a sensationally reported on study which hasn't even been peer-reviewed and published yet.  It is more than likely based on seriously flawed data to begin with, though we are going to have to wait for publication to find out.  It is reported to come to conclusion which may not be justified by the data and methodology of the research.  Again, we are going to have to wait on its publication to find out.  Yet, it is being trumpeted by the climate science community and the media as a definitive refutation of skeptics.  Since I can't afford the expensive subscription prices for the journals it is likely to be published in, I'm going to have to wait for Steven McIntyre or Anthony Watts to review the published piece when it comes out to find out whether I'm spot on or not. 

The problem with Mann.

As I mentioned earlier, I have a bit of a problem with politically motivated science.

We saw it first manifested in the twentieth century under the banner of Eugenics, a pseudoscience which is repudiated in part because of where it ultimately led.  However, such abuse of science to serve a political agenda hasn't disappeared by any means.  My first encounter with what amounts to questionable science came as a college senior, when I first encountered the body of "science" published in medical journals in pursuit of a scientific justification for gun control.  Even many colleagues of those publishing their pseudo-studies objected to their work, publishing scathing critiques of their work.  Yet those periodicals ignored the objections and continue to publish such garbage to this day; and their "studies" get cited as authoritative by the media and the legal profession.

I first became aware of the "science" of man-made global warming around 2000 as a result of some of the sensational claims being made at the time about the dire consequences for our planet if we didn't gut our economy and take ourselves back to a nineteenth century lifestyle.  I began my own researches into the issue and came to the conclusion that the claims were overblown, to say the least, and predicated on flawed research, much of it in the mold of the same sort of "science" I encountered five years earlier.  Don't get me wrong, The evidence for our planet warming since the mid to late nineteenth century is indisputable.  The problem I have is with the claims as to the cause.  I think the warming is part of a natural process repeated throughout history and beyond, not man made as many claim.

To make the case that modern global warming was both artificial and unprecedented, history had to be rewritten.  Now I don't have a problem with rewriting history if it can be shown the current paradigm is inaccurate.  That is simply part of refining the story of man's history.  However, to revise history without a proper basis for doing so in pursuit of an agenda is fraudulent, and to do it in the name of science undermines scientific credibility, that''s why I get so bent out of shape with the bogus gun studies.  I was reminded of this today by the following article:

University Turns Over Some of Climate Scientist's documents.

This story reports that some of the documents surrounding the research of Michael Mann and his "hockey stick" graph were turned over in response to an FOI request by a "conservative" think tank, the American Tradition Institute.  That the university drug its feet and it took intervention by a judge to gain a partial release of the material is itself significant.  For those who don't know what this is all about let me give a little background.

Back in the last part of the 1990s the IPCC was preparing what was billed to be a major release in its report on man made global warming, aka Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW).  The IPCC wanted to make the case that modern warming was not only caused by man, but historically unprecedented.  There was, however,  several little problems called the (WMP), a warm period from the tenth through the thirteenth centuries which anecdotal evidence from the time suggests was even warmer than today, and the Maunder Minimum, a cold period period from the 17th through the 19th centuries associated with a period of minimal sunspot activity from 1645 to 1715 by the same name.  The last is commonly called "The Mini Ice Age.  For the IPCCs case to be made it somehow had to be shown that global climate was relatively stable until modern times.  A little known scientist, Michael Mann, stepped up to the plate and provided what is now famously called the "hockey Stick" Graph purportedly based on tee-ring proxies, showing the very sort of stable climate the IPCC demanded through more than a thousand years of history with an exponential rise in temperatures right at the end.

Problems began after the report was released when a retired mathmetician smelled a rat and decided to examine the data for himself.  The mathematician noticed some irregularities, such as certain values normally reported in such works not being included in the paper cited by the IPCC report.  When Dr. Mann refused to give him access to the data, something normally done when a colleague examining another's research requests it, the stench got worse.  The mathematician, Stephen McIntyre would co-publish a paper with Dr. Ross McKitrich pointing out the flaws Mr. McIntyre could determine in Man's research in 2004.  I won't point out most of the flaws in the methodology since I plan to highlight one particular decision on Mann's part which came to light later, as a result of Climate gate.

We've all heard the "hide the decline" comment which came as a result of the hacked e-mails from the Climate Research Unit at the University East Anglia which is the headquarters of the climate science community.  However, there is some confusion as to what went on.  It seems that Michael Mann had a little problem with his data.  Dr. Mann had based his proxy record on tree rings, a highly interpretive methodology fraught with flaws when it comes to determining annual temperatures since temperature is only one of many influences on annual tree growth.  Dr' Mann's problem was that his reconstruction of annual temperatures didn't watch with observed annual temperature, especially after the 1960s.  The reconstructed temperature went into decline instead of rising as they should.  Consider this for a moment, his interpretation of the tree rings for the historical period didn't match the known temperatures for the period, calling his entire reconstruction of historical global temperatures into question.

Dr. Mann's solution for publication is now immortalized by his e-mail comment that he would have to "hide the decline."  Instead of starting over, or admitting he was wrong, Dr. Mann decided to throw the unmatching data out and substitute it with the recorded temperatures.  Thus the report and its graph would give a misleading impression as to the authority of Mann's historical reconstruction.  Now I don't know about anybody else, but when I went through college and did my research classes I was told such conduct was higly unethical.  Apparently I was misinformed.  As the article I came across today states:

The release of the e-mail follows the release Monday of a report by the Inspector General of the National Science Foundation (NSF). It says Mann did not violate any codes of ethical research conduct in connection with the so-called Climategate e-mails, which unknown hackers copied from a server at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom in November 2009. The NSF investigation was the latest in a series of inquiries to find no evidence for allegations by critics, ATI among them, that Mann had falsified data or skewed calculations to exaggerate recent increases in global temperatures or humanity's role in causing them.

 Excuse me, when did it become ethical to eliminate data which contradicts ones conclusions and substitute other data in which doesn't?  By doing so didn't Dr. Mann in fact skew the data?  I guess those who taught me how to conduct research were sadly misinformed if this is the current state of affairs in research science!  What really gets to me is that this sort of attitude on the part of the "scientific establishment" undermines sciences credibility with the populace as folks aren't as stupid as the folks covering Dr.Mann's ass think they are.

Even worse, this sad state of affairs extends beyond the climate science community and academia in general.  I've already mentioned the skewed gun control research given the impremise of prestigious medical journals.  Michael Chrichton, who sounded the clarion call on the problems with climate science in his seminal book State Of Fear noted before that a similar attitude among historians when he wrote The 13th Warrior:

I mention this because the tendency to blend the boundaries of fact and fiction has become widespread in modern society.  Fiction is now inserted seamlessly in everything from scholarly histories to television news.  Of course, television is understood to be venal, its transgressions shrugged off by most of us.  But the attitude of “post-modern” scholars represents a more fundamental challenge.  Some in academic life now argue seriously there is no difference between fact and fiction, that all ways of reading text are arbitrary and personal, and that therefore pure fiction is as valid as hard research.  At best, this attitude evades traditional scholarship; at worst, it is nasty and dangerous.  But such academic views were not prevalent twenty years ago, when I sat down to write this novel in the guise of a scholarly monograph, and academic fashion may change again—particularly if scholars find themselves chasing down imaginary footnotes, as I have done.  (Final word in 1992 edition)

Michael Chricton's words almost twenty years ago serve to warn us to the depths to which both science and academia have fallen.  That is the crux of the problem, science is now, like history, being corrupted to serve a political agenda.  Because of that we, as consumers of information, can't be sure we aren't being fed inaccurate information.  This highlights the need for each and everyone of us to learn how to evaluate information for ourselves, we can no longer trust the "experts."